Shootout at Sabine’s

There are some cases when it may be helpful to carry a gun while getting your hair done—if you are a police officer, and know how to use it. Officer Feris Jones was getting her hair taken care of on Saturday night, at Sabine’s Hallway Beauty Salon, in Brooklyn, when a man burst in. From the Times:

“This ain’t no joke,” the man shouted, waving a .44-caliber Magnum revolver. “This is a robbery. I will kill you.”

The gunman ordered the four people there — the proprietor, an employee, Officer Jones and another customer — to place their belongings in a black bag, the police said. He then ordered them into a bathroom in the back while he searched the shop for more worth stealing.

In the bathroom, Mr. Browne said, Officer Jones pulled out her revolver. She whispered to the other three women to lie down and gave the proprietor her cellphone and told her to call 911. Then she stepped out of the bathroom, identified herself as a police officer and ordered the robber to drop his gun, the police said. He refused and opened fire from about 12 feet away, Mr. Browne said, shooting four times in quick succession.

Jones had better aim. As a “bullet whizzed past her head,” she shot the gun out of the man’s hand. He ran away, leaving a trail of blood that the police used dogs to follow, and was arrested at his mother’s apartment. “She shot me in the hand,” he said (or “whined,” as the Post put it) when the police came to his door. His mother, speaking of Jones, told the Post, “she did a good job.” Very true. For one thing, she didn’t fire blindly back and hit him in the head. “Her reserve under fire was matched only by her marksmanship,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

So should everyone take a gun to get a haircut? More restrictive gun laws might be helpful, actually, in keeping nineteen-year-olds from showing up at salons with .44 caliber revolvers. More to the point, it’s a reminder that a man with a gun should remember that, in any given group of women in a beauty salon, there may well be a police officer–or a soldier, for that matter. Meanwhile, Jones has been promoted to detective. She wore her police hat for the ceremony, but what you can see of her hair looks fine.

Incidentally, the Times describe Sabine’s Hallway, which is on Franklin Avenue between Clifton and Green, as being in Bedford-Stuyvesant, NY1 says it was in Clinton Hill, the Daily News has it bothways, while the Post says it’s in Fort Greene (Sabine Bellevue, the proprietor, goes with Clinton Hill): Discuss. As Brooklynites know, it’s a fraught question.

Amy Davidson is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.